Architectural, automotive and aerospace coatings, including indoor and outdoor paints, stains and industrial coatings are commonly provided in a large variety of colors. Paint color display systems are used to display various paint color samples to assist consumers in selecting paint colors. These systems typically involve the use of a display board, pamphlet, book, or multi-tiered display with ink-based or paint color samples. A difficulty arises in selecting a paint color to match or coordinate with the paint colors and furnishings that are in proximity to the surface that is to be painted, such as, for example, a room. The color samples are typically produced on a paper substrate that are on the order of the size of a business card and, in the case of a room to be painted, the samples are taken into the room and compared to the furnishings therein. The small paint color samples are difficult to compare to all of the colors that are present because the samples are relatively small in relation to the surroundings of the surface that will be painted. It is thus difficult to obtain an accurate impression of the finished environment with the selected color. In many cases, the user tries to imagine how the environment will appear when a coating is applied to the surface to be painted in the color of a small sample, but the visualization is difficult to do.
Various coatings manufacturers and sellers have developed computer based software tools that allow users to access via, for example, the Internet, and that provide users the ability to display a paint color on a paintable surface of either a stock photograph or a user uploaded digital photograph. In the former type of system, the stock photographs are selected from a list of, for example, room type (e.g., bedroom, living room, etc.). In the latter example, the user is able to upload a custom photograph that depicts a surface or surfaces to be painted. The user may then instruct the software to display a surface or multiple surfaces in one or more paint colors that are available for purchase. Such systems have the disadvantage that they do not work well when the uploaded digital photographs have images of extraneous objects or surfaces that are not to be painted. Oftentimes the software that comprises such systems cannot distinguish between a surface to be painted and such extraneous objects or surfaces, and thus the displayed result is unsatisfactory to the user.
A need remains for a system for accurately depicting, in a digital image, how a surface that is in the presence of other surfaces or objects will look when painted with a particular paint color.